Creator of Yoon-Suin and other materials. Propounding my half-baked ideas on role playing games. Jotting down and elaborating on ideas for campaigns, missions and adventures. Talking about general industry-related matters. Putting a new twist on gaming.

Wednesday, 7 February 2018

The Meta-Game Art Genre

In case you're not heard, Wizards of the Coast have finally got around to releasing the D&D Rules Cyclopedia in print form. If you want to own the version of D&D that Yoon-Suin was written for (never mind that it's also the best form of D&D ever made), get it.

I was going to write some sort of gushing paean to the Rules Cylopedia with this entry but then I was flicking through my PDF version in preparation for doing so and was reminded of this picture from inside:

It's an endearing illustration for a number of reasons. Partly, I think, it's because like a lot of the RC art it is somewhat imperfectly executed in a way that makes you - well, me anyway - feel an overwhelming sense of affection for it. Partly it's the fact that it is almost downplaying rather than hyping up the product by depicting players having a bit of a problem playing the game rather than unreservedly having a Great Time. Partly it's because it's so realistic: anybody who has played D&D can identify with trying to translate the map in the DM's mind into reality on a piece of graph paper (and any DM can identify with the realisation that, crap, you've made your map too complicated). Partly it's because it already looks like a bygone era - the hairstyles, the notepad, the t-shirt - and thus unintentionally but brilliantly combines nostalgia for playing the game with nostalgia for the whole atmosphere of the late 80s/early 90s when I was first encountering it.

But mainly I think it's just because it actually depicts people playing D&D rather than being an attempt to illustrate an in-universe element of it. It is not game art so much as it is meta-game art. That just makes it fun in itself.

I started racking my brains to think of other examples of meta-game art that I've seen. I'm sure that this genre is not limited to this one example in the Rules Cyclopedia. (In fact there may even be similar examples within other D&D books.) But, off the top of my head, I simply can't think of any. Is my sleep-deprived mind playing tricks on me? Come forth with other examples and share them!

27 comments:

There's an odd but memorable example in that most peculiar book Fantasy Wargaming, by Bruce Galloway. The book is a great source-book for medieval RPGs, but includes a completely impenetrable system.

The illustration shows PCs and a peculiar monster fighting on the table, while the GM rolls dice (which intrude onto the table). But to add another layer of meta (heavy meta?), the GM is wearing full Elizabethan fig.

Dragon Warriors Book 1 (by Dave Morris), page 12-13, great one of the players gaming (page 12) being spun into the party looking at a map (page 13). Page 21 marginally fits the bill too. I believe it's a British system? Curious to hear your opinion about it.

Anyway, in exchange for that... the D&D of the Rules Cylopedia... how is it linked to BX and BCMI? I've been trying to untangle that part of the pre-AD&D erra ...

Heh... That was my least favorite era of D&D art (coinciding with Easley's full-on Evil Clown period and the "Dave and Nancy from Accounting in their RenFest Garb" variation of "You are There"). I almost passed on getting the reprint because it didn't include the Elmore art of the little booklets.

My "you kids get of my lawn"ing aside, you're absolutely right about the unique meta-nature of this art. It was a hallmark of that period (along with really poor anatomy skills). Outside it, the only example I can think of is in Moldvay Basic where we see two Real World people imagining their D&D characters.

Supercrew is kinda all meta, since a central premise is the players are playing themselves as superberoes, and every session begins with them making excuses to duck out from the actual game table to go change identities. And the game is a comic, so this is all illustrated.

Haha. I intend to write a follow up to this post, but this picture is really in a separate sub-genre where the in-game and meta-game elements are mixed together. A lot of the examples in the comments are like that.

Funny story: I was recently told by several my actual-play podcast listeners that they particularly loved the sound of my players taking notes on paper that gets picked up on the recording. They said they found it soothing.

I have a suspicion that a big part of this latest cycle of interest in RPGs is due to their inherent "old fashioned" charm.